Unsure Footing
by Progman
Summary: They beat Hiroshi; knocked him out cold. And Bolin thought that maybe, just maybe, that would be the end of it. That the war was over. They'd ride down the mountain side, get back into town, turn him in to the police, and that would be that. It wasn't. He woke up.


Bolin shivered and tightened his hold on Naga's reigns. Winter had never been his favorite season. Ten years of being mostly homeless would do that to a guy, even though Republic City's definition of cold wasn't nearly as harsh as some other places. Mako had always been their fireplace, making sure they didn't get sick and survived the months of snow and ice.

But Mako wasn't there, so he'd just have to cope with the cold. No, Mako and Korra had gone to fight Amon, and he was pretty sure they beat him. Not that he had any way of knowing for sure, but he could feel it in his gut. After all, if he, Asami, Pabu, Naga and General Iroh could beat Mister Sato and all of those planes, and since Korra was the Avatar...yeah, they were fine. Totally fine, just like General Iroh probably was.

Totally fine.

Unlike Asami, who was not at all totally fine. She hadn't said a word since she helped him hoist her father on the front of Naga's saddle. Even as they bounded down the mountain side, Naga's sure footing plowing through the rocks and fallen snow with comforting ease, her response to every bump in the not-really-there-road was just to hold him tighter.

Bolin was used to earthbending walls and barriers between things and people, but _being_ that barrier wasn't something he'd done very often. Asami hadn't even asked, but he would have said yes if she had. She'd been through...well, he had no idea. It's not like he could imagine Mako betraying him like that. That would never happen. It was totally impossible.

Then again, that was probably what Asami had thought about her dad.

Pabu chittered and crawled from one of Bolin's shoulders to the other, flapping his tail over Asami's hair. Bolin shushed him and gave him a disapproving look. If everyone wanted to be quiet, that was okay. He could be quiet, but that meant Pabu had to be quiet too. But Pabu kept chirping and licking his nose, and no amount of 'bad sounds' from himself were doing the trick. Which was weird, because they normally did.

The saddle shook, more than it already was, and Bolin looked down from Pabu. "Ohhh..." he whispered. Mister Sato wriggled in his bindings and growled, struggling against the metal cables and rope around his arms and legs. He stretched his neck to the side and glared up at Bolin, his scowl twitching like a crazy person.

"Asami," he seethed.

Bolin winced as Asami's arms constricted his lungs.

"Asami! Answer me when I am speaking to you!" He craned his neck as far as he could. "You cannot hide from your father, especially not behind some dirty, earthbending street rat."

Asami frowned and relaxed her hold on Bolin, though only slightly. "Don't call him that," she whispered.

"What was that?"

"I said don't call him that." Asami looked over Bolin's shoulder and glared just as hard at her father. "In fact, why don't you just stop talking and leave all of your lies and your hatred for the police."

"You lost, Mister Sato," said Bolin, not quite meeting Mister Sato's eyes. They were really all kinds of scary. The kind that could rip out your spirit just by looking at you wrong. Just filled with hate and that he was better than everybody else. Reminded him of Lightning Bolt Zolt...before he got his bending taken away.

Mister Sato scoffed. "Short-sighted and ignorant. Just what I'd expect from such an uncultured bender like you. You think this is the end?" He grinned. "I lost one small battle of a much larger war that has _already_ been won! The Second Fleet has been wiped out."

"Nope, pretty sure that General Iroh took down all your planes."

"One man taking down an entire squadron of aircraft he's never even seen before? Nothing more than childish idealism."

Bolin frowned. "Not if it's true!"

"Which you have no way of knowing if it is, or not." Mister Sato struggled to look around at the vast mountainside. "You're isolated from a city that would not answer your calls even if you they could." He laughed once. "This is moronic! What do you expect to happen upon your return? A parade? The police are _gone._ The Equalists have total control over my city, and they will arrest the both of you the moment you're spotted." He kicked Naga's side. "And then they'll put down this monstrous pet of the Avatar, as well as your disgusting rodent."

"Dad," said Asami, her voice cracking. "Stop. Please, just stop this. It's over."

"Not yet!" he yelled suddenly. "It's not over yet! Did you not think I planned for this eventuality?! That by some impossible chance that you would capture me? I thought you knew me better than this, Asami."

Asami flinched and reached around BoDlin to grab her father by the collar. "So did I! But I guess not, because all I see in front of me right now is an insane, horrible old man so consumed by revenge he tried to kill his own daughter!"

"You abandoned me, your mother's memory-"

"Don't you dare bring mom into this!" seethed Asami.

"How do you think she would feel if she saw us fighting like this, Asami? She would be disgusted and horrified that you'd stoop so low as to betray your own father for some infantile, romantic fantasy!"

Asami shuddered and shut her eyes. "Is that what you think that was? That I was just so _infatuated_ that I couldn't think straight?" Her eyes snapped open again, glaring even more intensely. "That my sense of right and wrong is so easy to manipulate?!"

"There's no other explanation. Every moment you spend with these benders, you may as well be spitting on your mother's grave! So clearly, morality means nothing to you!"

"You are trying to commit genocide!" screamed Asami. "You are trying to hurt people just because of how they were born! How can you possibly defend that!?"

"THEY KILLED YOUR MOTHER!"

"AND YOU KILLED HER MEMORY!" Asami choked back a sob. "You perverted it to your own selfish desires. I may not have known her as long as you, or loved her the same way, but you're sick. This is sick. I can't..." She retreated and buried her face in Bolin's back. "I can't talk anymore. Just stop talking. Please."

Hiroshi smirked and relaxed, as best as he could, into the saddle. "Deep down, you know that I am right for doing all this. You're just too scared to admit it." He was silent for a few moments, looking between Bolin and Asami. "There, you see? If you had any confidence in your own choices, you'd simply shock me again. But you won't."

Bolin ground his teeth. It was getting _extremely_ difficult not to...just say something. It wasn't his place to speak up, not with that kind of thing, but Mister Sato was-he couldn't take it. He'd sat silently long enough. "Yeah? Well, maybe I'll just do it. I'm not your kid, and this looks pretty simple," he said, patting the metal disk on Mister Sato's back.

Asami squeezed his shoulder. "Bolin, don't. That could kill him."

Mister Sato narrowed his eyes at him. "She's right. It very easily could. That much electricity going through a man's body, twice in such a short time? At my age? It could stop my heart." He scoffed. "And you of all people should understand what it feels like to lose a parent."

Bolin kept his mouth shut and looked away.

"I did extensive research on both you and your firebending scum of a brother. A firebender killed your parents during a mugging. Orphaned at a young age, and you only survived because you had your _bending._ " Mister Sato frowned. "Tell me, how many of your little friends growing up died of exposure or starvation?"

Bolin squeezed the reigns so hard his knuckles turned white.

"They were non-benders. All of them. Don't try to deny it, I can tell just by that look in your eye. You want to say I'm wrong, but you've more experience in this injustice than most. In fact, you really should be thanking me-"

"No!" Bolin grunted and snapped the reigns, surging Naga forward. "How can you be this evil?! You're Asami's dad! You're her _father._ Just because I didn't have parents for very long, and don't really remember them at all, doesn't mean I don't I _know_ they're not supposed to be like you." He shook his head. "You're a horrible person, Mister Sato. I wish I'd never met you. All you want to do is hurt people, and that's-that's not okay."

Hiroshi's expression soured as he turned his full attention to Bolin. "How dare you. You're the only one here who hurts others for his own gain. What exactly do you think probending is?! A _sport?!_ It's nothing more than glorified, barbaric violence!" He struggled in his bindings, getting an inch closer to his face. "Everything I've done has been for the betterment of society! So people like me wouldn't have to live in fear of people like you!" Mister Sato was silent for a few moments and simply glared at him, almost like he was studying him. "Your brother was bad enough; at the very least I could see why my daughter was so _enthralled_ with him. Bending may be a disgusting impurity, but at least he's capable. But you? You're _nothing,_ " he spat. "You're just a bad joke at everyone's expense. All you've ever done is hold your brother back, and that is all you'll ever do."

Bolin closed his eyes and resisted the very powerful urge to shock him again.

"You should have died in that alley with your mother and father. Your brother would have been better off."

Bolin felt Asami's hands fall away from him and used that chance to take a deep breath. "You know what, Mister Sato? You should be really glad that I'm _not_ my brother." He took off his shoe and violently shoved his dirty, sweaty sock down Mister Sato's throat. He choked and gagged, but Bolin covered his mouth with his hand, keeping it in place. "Because Mako..." he said, gulping through the tears trickling down his cheeks. "Mako would have shocked you."

* * *

 **Ugh. Writing Bigoted!Hiroshi is emotionally exhausting. Rewarding, but exhausting.**

 **Wrote this out to try and get back into the swing of writing, and also because I've been meaning to write this one-shot for a few months now. Realized I never saw anything that covered this stretch of time during 1x12 "Endgame", and thought that was a damn shame. Hopefully I captured Bolin and Asami's Book 1 mentality, which was a concern for me since I've been writing Post Book 3 and 4 for like nine months at this point. I don't typically post one-shots as short as this, but I kinda...had to. Any longer would be bloated and it wouldn't be as evocative. Breaking my own rules here, heh.**

 **Hiroshi's accusation that Asami's libido being the 'reason' for her not following her father's madness isn't...that's not supposed to come from a place of sexism, but rather just how irrational Hiroshi is at this point. We all know how ridiculous that sounds, which is sort of the point, but I just wanted to address it because I wasn't entirely sure that was clear.**

 **As for Bolin's sock, I wanted to recontextualize it. I personally never had an issue with that joke at the end of 3x13 (I thought it was funny), where he does that to Zaheer, since to me it seemed like he was trying to get him to STFU and stop causing everyone else more pain by ranting about how nothing mattered when Korra was laying there all but dead. But I also thought it was something he'd done before, and this just kinda clicked for me. It's not supposed to be funny in this work, and I hope it wasn't, but more an act of desperation.**

 **Also: Brosami FTW**

 **Thanks for reading :)**


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